The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red
Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. While some
fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner. This
misfortune began after the Red Sox sold star player Babe Ruth, sometimes called The Bambino,
to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919–1920. Before that point, the Red Sox had been
one of the most successful professional baseball franchises, winning the first World Series and
amassing five World Series titles. After the sale, they went without a title for decades, even while
the Red Sox won four American League championships from 1946 to 1986, as the previously lackluster
Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports. The curse
became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years.
Before Ruth left Boston, the Red Sox had won five of the first fifteen World Series, with Ruth
pitching for the 1916 and 1918 championship teams (he was with the Sox for the 1915 World Series but
the manager used him only once, as a pinch-hitter, and he did not pitch). The Yankees had not played in
any World Series up to that time. In the 84 years after the sale, the Yankees played in 39 World Series,
winning 26 of them, twice as many as any other team in Major League Baseball. Meanwhile, over the same time
span, the Red Sox played in only four World Series and lost each in seven games.
Red Sox fans attempted various methods over the years to exorcise their famous curse. These included
placing a Boston cap atop Mt. Everest and burning a Yankees cap at its base camp; hiring professional
exorcists and Father Guido Sarducci to "purify" Fenway Park; spray painting a "Reverse Curve" street sign
on Storrow Drive to change it to say "Reverse the Curse" (the sign wasn't replaced until just after the 2004
World Series win); and finding a piano owned by Ruth that he had supposedly pushed into a pond near his Sudbury,
Massachusetts farm, Home Plate Farm
In 2004, the Red Sox once again met the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
The Red Sox lost the first three games, including losing Game 3 at Fenway by the lopsided score
of 19–8.
The Red Sox trailed, 4–3, in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 4. But the team tied the game
with a walk by Kevin Millar and a stolen base by pinch-runner Dave Roberts, followed by an RBI
single against Yankee closer Mariano Rivera by third baseman Bill Mueller, and won on a two-run home
run in the 12th inning by David Ortiz. The Red Sox won the next three games to become the first Major
League baseball team to win a seven-game postseason series after being down three games to none.